Whenever we face loss, we always experience grief. Our reactions are unique and no one experience grief in the same way. The setting of Richard Ford’s novel The Sportswriter shows us the grief and pain that Frank feels, who main character in this novel is. Frank is a 38-year-old sports writer, divorced man, and also he is the father of two children. The pain and misery that Frank feels is because of his son’s death. This novel shows how Frank deals with death and grief that made him have difficulty connecting with other people.
The first example that shows how hard was for Frank to connect with other people because of his son’s death, who died a few years back from Reye’s syndrome, is the relationship with his girlfriend. After he had got divorced, he tried to connect emotionally with his girlfriend Vicki. Vicki Arsenault is Frank’s girlfriend, who works as a young nurse. The relationship between Vicki and Frank was strange and hard for understanding. There were some conversations that seemed very strange and awkward. An example of their conversation is when Frank told Vicki that he loves her, and she replied to him that she also likes him and started asking questions about his ex-wife, who lives in New Jersey with their two children (151). She refuses to be the pliant bimbo Frank really seems to desire.
Another scenario in which we can see how Frank has difficulty of connecting emotionally with other people is a relationship with Herb, ex-football player whom Frank interviews in a hope to get some information, but he offers instead a bitter story of a sportsman without a sport. The moments in which Frank and Herb were together were awkward and uncomfortable. It was not easy for Frank to get some useful information to write about him (156). This situation confirms that Frank’s difficulty connecting with others is reflected even in his career. I think that the bad feelings or behavior of a person are always evident at his workplace.
Another example of his inability to make connections with other people was when one of his friends killed himself. Because of this suicide, Frank remembers his dead son and starts to feel grief again.
In chapter 7, we observe that he is trying to deal with death and his experience of grief once more. Also, we see that he becomes lonely and because of feeling grief he turns into a sad man. In chapter 8, we find out that Frank deals with grieving when he has a flashback after Ralf’s death. Frank and his ex-wife X were ordering and organizing all kinds of catalogs (195). They used to look at their catalogs in order to forget the grief and to have the illusion of a perfect life when they see pictures of happy families. Also, they thought that catalogs could bring hope and make sense of their grief (196). One of the main reasons due to which Frank had problems of connecting with other people is because he was afraid of losing another beloved once again, and this made his problem more complicated and not easy to solve.
At the end of the novel we see that Frank has changed, becoming an open minded person, and has begun to accept more things that he wasn’t sure he would do or agree with it. Also, he kept in touch with his new friends, especially Catherine, who asked him questions and helped him to finish his novel. Catherine Flaherty is a “not a girl to fritter”, who her father taught one or two things (360). She had a big influence on Frank, which made him to be the person he wanted to be. The Sportswriter novel has ended by ending the morning of his son. Also, it ended when Frank moved to Florida and found a family that he belongs to. This man fortunately has become more optimistic and happy.
In this novel, we found out that the weather changes with the time that Frank gets over his pain. It changes from cold, snowy, icy, windy weather to warmer and nicer one.
In conclusion, the primary reason that Frank had a hard time to connect with other people is his grief and dealing with death of his child. He had a hard time to connect with his girlfriend Vicki and Herb. Also, a terrible time for him was when his friend killed himself, which put Frank in shock. At the end of the novel, Frank finds the family that he loves and moves to Florida. His life has changed becoming more significant for him.
Work Cited
Ford, Richard. The Sportswriter. New York: Vintage, 1995. Print.
